azriel x fem oc (post ACOSF)
magdalene noor has spent half a century as the enslaved consort of a powerful fae sultan, numbing herself into oblivion so she can survive and training at night with a once-famed warrior so she deserves to survive. her p...
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THE FOREST HAD BEEN PRETERNATURALLY STILL IN THE FILTER OF DUSK, AS ALWAYS. It dozed soundly at the base of the foothills, ones that gave way to craggy peaks splattered with the remnants of snow like rows of jagged teeth behind the lips of a pretty smile. Rarely disturbed and well-protected by its small temple in a grove of trees, whose charms flirted with the deer as if kindred spirits while keeping at bay any lesser faeries with snarling certainty, the forest didn't mind the eternal slumber. It, in fact, preferred it. The warriors of their land did not travel on foot through, the inhabitants of the temple rarely left, and its creatures stayed wellfed despite the wars that had raged outside of its borders. As if the woods and the flowers and the birds were one breathing being, it basked in the quiet and the cold sun lazily.
So it was shocked into a stupor when a flash of molten red magic, of dry heat, dumped a trembling girl into its lap. The limbs of every tree shuddered at the impact, the blast stripping the leaves and petals of flowers off of everything within fifty feet. The forest reared at the intrusion, at the curled ball of bare limbs in a heap, and then froze its rage when a gentle golden glow grasped its roots with a motherly sternness.
Child of mine, it warned with the intonation of something ancient. Do her no harm.
As if to soothe the harsh command, the golden light flooded the scene of the disturbance, fixing the broken stems and cracked riverstones with a sweet incentive laced. As if sensing something, the warmth faded the moment the girl opened her eyes.
*-*-*-*
Magdalene Noor could only recall the scent of blood when she searched for an explanation as to where the Hel she was and how the Hel she'd gotten there. It was a familiar aroma: as thick in iron as the cuffs welded around her neck and wrists, red as a sunrise over Rhaja's endless dunes. Thicker than water, is how the saying went, which was good considering water was something Lena's country would never have enough of. Blood had been what doomed her as a child, and yet its essence lingering in her mouth and nose felt oddly triumphant.
Lena's wide brown eyes took in the land before her-- blooming flora and fauna, dappled trees ladden with nearly-ripe fruits, grass beneath her bruised knees that felt supple. Her arched ears picked up the chattering of some type of animal, and a sound that brought most of her people to their knees; the wet lapping of water. Every word Lena had ever repeated back to herself, every portrait whose whorls of paint she had stroked longingly, had not prepared her for the utter beauty of a landscape that did not roast its occupants in a relenting sun and grind particles of sand into their soul.
A chill ran through her as she rose to her feet and took in her surroundings, realizing that she was utterly alone for the first time in what felt as if forever. A cool breeze brushed against Lena, and she shuddered at its stroke, wrapping her bare arms against herself. A type of shame, hot and heady and unfamiliar, gripped her, as if she was embarrassed that the golden wood of her dreams had to see her like this.
